Getting back to the norm

Bria didn't nap for 3 days...the 3 days we celebrated Christmas. So I was nervous that she would fight nap time come Monday afternoon, but she didn't. She went down happily and slept for over 2 hours, wahoo! She is definitely more well behaved when she gets her naps, I've missed my happy, obedient girl!
We took down our tree and decorations on Sunday and put the house back to it's normal self. Bria and I stayed in our pajamas all day Monday and it felt great. Yesterday we went grocery shopping so we put real clothes on so as not to scare unsuspecting shoppers.
It's been horribly rainy this week so we haven't been able to go for little walks or anything which is depressing. I'll take a little bit of snow please, the rain is not welcome!
Bria has been enjoying all her Christmas presents this week, they have been keeping her very busy. We moved her changing table out of her room and into storage and now I just need to find a book shelf thing to help organize her room. I also need to put some of her toys in storage, the ones she is too old for.

Other than my exciting organizing of Bria's room, we are just going to be hanging out this week and lounging around.

Can't believe we are about to say goodbye to 2010, so crazy!

Four Christmas'

in just 3 days.

Whew, we are tired!

What a wonderful 3 days we have just had, spending it with our families.

Christmas Eve morning before we headed down to my mom's we let Bria open a present at home. It was a cute TinkerBell rug, wings and a wand.

She was pretty excited about it.

Christmas Eve was spent at my mom's house with all of my siblings. Since Lance is still deployed we did a little video of us singing and posted it to Facebook so he knew just how much we miss him and how sad we are he wasn't able to spend Christmas with us.

Bria had so much fun with her cousins and aunts and uncles. She got spoiled with attention and presents :)

Playing with aunt Jenny

Bria followed Porter around like a little puppy. She would say, "Porter!!!!" and give him a big hug or pat him on the back. Her first crush ;)

I think my favorite was when Bria opened up clothes, she would exclaim very excitedly: "Oh! Soooo cute!" and we all died laughing. Love it. She also was very animated opening up all the TinkerBell themed presents she got and just loved them. Every present was very exciting to her and she was good about saying Thank you.

Kayla and half of Schuyler ;)

Brian and Jaidyn being goofy

Precious Kailey

Jaime and Jenny

One of the many hugs Bria gave Porter :)

If Bria wasn't picking her nose this would've been a pretty cute picture.

Christmas morning she was so happy to see that Santa had brought her a Barbie VW Bug with a Barbie. She spent all morning putting Barbie and TinkerBell in the bug and driving them around.

Way to go Santa!

We headed up to my Dad's to give the girls their presents and Bria opened up hers. She didn't want to stop playing with her new toys, she loved them. Sadly our visit was short but we made the best of it.

Cassidy helping her open presents

This girl loves her clothes!

My smarty pants on her laptop

We headed up to Brian's Dad house and I was hoping Bria would nap, but no go. Nonetheless we had a great day and lots of fun. She had a blast playing with Rebecca (Brian's step-niece) and Rebecca was just so sweet with her.

A TinkerBell night light, so cute.

Having fun with Rebecca and Joshua

Kathie reading the kids a story at the end of the night.

We drove home at 5:15 pm and Bria fell asleep for half hour and then woke up very cranky. As soon as we got home (about 6:30 pm) I read to her for awhile and then put her down for bed. She was zonked.

Sunday morning we headed to Heather's house for Christmas with Brian's mom and Terry.

As you can tell, Bria was very happy :)

and silly :)

She got even more wonderful presents and loved them all. She loves her TinkerBell backpack/suitcase and can't wait to bring it to Aunt Heather's for sleep overs :)

We had such a wonderful Christmas and are so grateful to our amazing and generous family members. Not only did Bria get spoiled but Brian and I did as well. We are very blessed.

And very tired ;)

Waiting for Santa...

Not too much longer :)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Big Bake Day!

It's funny that we call it our bake day because we do very little baking. We bake cookies and decorate them, but a lot of the treats we make do not require the oven. We love muddy buddies, scotch-a-roos, etc. No matter what we do we always have fun together and it's such a wonderful girls day...plus Porter :)

(From left: me, Jaidyn, Bria, Kailey, and Kayla)

The girls playing piano. Bria could've sat there forever I think.

Bria had a blast drenching herself and Ya-ya's floor with water while she washed the dishes...or as she called it, "Washing da bubbles!"

Bria was a handful and her lack of a nap didn't help. I was getting so frustrated with her and I'm just glad I had lots of help. Grandma's, Aunts, and cousins are the best :)

Jenny and her cute apron.

Kailey is a master cookie decorator. She is so creative and makes the cutest cookies.

Can you tell what that is? It was my attempt at making a little yellow VW bug. The kids thought it looked like an upside yellow frog :) I tried.

Grandma and her grandkids. Bria was not cooperating, hence the blurry photo.

Grandma and the Jensen kids.

Ya-ya and Bria

I finished our Christmas shopping yesterday, yes! Plus, I got everything wrapped during Bria's nap yesterday. So we are just about ready and I can't wait for Christmas Eve, I feel like a kid again, I can hardly contain my excitement!

22 Months

Bria is 22 months old. I haven't been good about monthly updates since she turned 1 but I still want to do them every once and awhile so I remember what she was up to at this crazy and adorable age.

First some stats:

Height: 34 inches

Weight: 25 lbs 15 oz

She wears 18 month pants and is starting to switch to 24 month shirts. Instead of diapers (wahoo!!!!!) she wears 2T underwear, in the TinkerBell variety of course. She wears size 5 shoe.

• Talks a lot. I have no idea how many words she says, I can't count that high. ;)
• She can be a bit of a spit fire, when something is not going her way she does this irritating pig squeal that makes me want to throw something. I miss her cute voice saying, "Help please," or "No thank you."
• Can sing the whole alphabet and just did it during lunchtime, I'm impressed at how well she says all the letters.

• Can count to 10 most the time, although 4 and 5 don't always make the cut.
• Understands when to use the word too. For example she will say, "Mommy's happy. Bria's happy too! Daddy's happy too!"
• Is so sweet and loving with her baby dolls. She feeds them, rocks them, sings to them, puts them down for bed, it's really cute to watch.

• Pretends to make dinner with her play food.
• Is getting better at eating and even enjoys snow peas, broccoli (she chews it up and then spits some out, but I still say it counts), and one time she liked tangerines.
• Is potty trained!
• Loves TinkerBell
• Is taking a long time to go down for naps these days, but I'm not giving up on naps!
• When I say, "Sesame Street is on, should we watch it?" She'll say excitedly, "Good idea!" and it makes me laugh every time.

• Her blond hair is turning a little darker, getting longer and the back is curly still.
• Her blue eyes still sparkle like diamonds and she has the sweetest dimples.

This toddler stage is hard. I read other blogs and people seem to have it so together and I start feeling guilty. "I'm letting her watch too much tv!" "She didn't eat enough meat, vegetables, and fruit today (or any for that matter)!" "I make her mac 'n cheese way to much." "I didn't play with her enough today." "I should take her out to play more often." "Am I depriving her of social interaction with other kids?" "Am I being too hard on her?" "She is mean to other kids, what have I done wrong?"

You get the point.

I'm trying hard to let go of this guilt. I've thought about making my blog private (which I still may do), quit reading other blogs, stop googling things, etc. I'm working hard to cut myself some slack, I can't do it all and that's okay. Bria is loved and I get to be at home with her and that is a huge blessing. She is such a sweet little girl and even on the hard days I remember that.

I've never loved anyone like I love Bria, she is absolutely positively my whole world and I would do anything for her.

I can't believe in 2 months I will have a 2 year old!